Delusions, Illusions
by Handful of Silence
Summary: How far can you believe in yourself when people are trying to convince you that you're mad? Murdock awakens to find himself back at the VA, with only his word that his team has ever existed at all.
1. Chapter 1

_AN/ A while ago I wrote a story called '**The Wastelands**' (a sequel/parallel storyline should be up some time soon),and the wonderful **danang1970** (whose stories are made of pure awesome, so please go and read them) reviewed with an interesting alternate interpretation on what happened in the story. Although it wasn't meant that way, the idea for this one shot popped into my head, and wouldn't go away. And obviously the concept of writing something deliberately ambiguous appealed to my evil nature of screwing with my readers ;-)_

_A hell of a lot of research went into this, most of it which probably isn't apparent in the story, but that's why it's taken so long to get this up. Hope you guys like anyway. _

* * *

"_I know they've all been talking 'bout me  
__I can hear them whisper  
__And it makes me think there must be something wrong with me"  
__**Unwell, Matchbox 20**_

* * *

**Delusions, Illusions**

His head feels filled with sawdust as he opens his eyes. Dry, scratchy sleep clings to his lashes, and his eyes roll momentarily in his head as the world creates itself around him, unable to commit to any one thought. Ideas are dulled and heavy in his brain, and it takes much effort on his behalf to focus himself to follow his trains of thought. He keeps wandering off, back to the blank page of thinking nothing at all.

He doesn't know where he is. That is the first piece of knowledge which sticks.

Something is covering his eyes, allowing him to only see crumpled dark. In the past that has never spelt anything good, and his mind begins to work up to a heightened capacity, forcing its placidity away. He imagines a blindfold tied over his eyes stopping him from seeing the surroundings he is imprisoned in, a restrictive hood over his head, so he strikes out at it in a panic of motion, grabbing it with his fingers; at this point he doesn't stop to consider it strange that his face is covered while his hands have been left untied. Whatever is restricting his face he tears away, freeing his sight. Sitting bolt upright, the brightness knocks him to shuttering his lids back shut, dizziness from sudden motion making him sway.

He pivots around blindly, disorientated, but wherever he is, it appears to be against an edge, and his movement over to one side has him falling from a height in a tumble of his own frantic limbs caught up in something, cursing in a voice which is croaky from unemployment. His arms he pulls around to protect his face from damage as the floor connects with the side of his body. There is a weight that crushes down upon him, on top of him. In his head, he sees an assailant, the same person who blindfolded him, and in his fright, he hits out, kicking with his bare feet at his enemy.

Someone is trying to kill him, it dawns on him suddenly, a cold sweat overtaking him, fuelling his fearfulness. Whoever they are, they're going to strangle him, and he feels a pressure around his neck, tightening with every fight he puts up. It's to subdue him, to stop him struggling. They are the men from his past reality in war, terrors from his nightmares made tangible, faceless monsters with dark blackened hearts, and they want him to choke up the secrets they're trying to tear from his lips. They want him to tell, like they did before. There'll be a prick in his arm or neck as they hold him down, injecting a chemical devil in his blood stream through a needle; Sodium Pentothal, a truth serum drug banned under several human rights conventions that tempts him and beckons him to blaspheme and inform all. _Tell us what we want to know, _it whispered then and it will whisper now, _tell us and all the pain will stop. Don't you see it'll be better for everyone? _Except he wont, he'll never divulge to these bastards anything – they'll use it to hurt his team, hunt them down and he wont let that happen.

The men with no faces he can see out of the corner of his eyes as they hold him tight with hands clamped, nails digging crescent moon marks into his upper arms, and he can hear them running through a barrage of monotonous questions as his head is submerged underwater. The waterline stops at his ears, his whole face forced under, but he wont tell them anything, he'll kill them before they'll get anything out of him. But damn they might just kill him first, because his lungs are burning, his heart thundering, the little supply of oxygen he managed to inhale before exhausted already, and he's choking and struggling as they hold him under, thrashing wildly to no avail, and he's scared that this time they aren't going to pull him back up...

Then air, blessed air that he drags back ferociously into his lungs so he can stop feeling like he's going to drown, his hair plastered against his scalp, water trailing off his skin to the floor, and this is his chance, and he turns back round at them, snarling. And in his head he claws with fingers that are suddenly talons at those faces (_Make them hurt, make them bleed, _sing the voices in his head). There are the crimson splatters of blood on his hands like a Jackson Pollock original, and he glances up into dark eyes and sees that he was right from the beginning, that they really have no faces at all where a face should be, and underneath the dark cowls they wear there is only a skeletal head on which the foundations of facial muscles have been built up, fusing into the bone in a horrific mix of off-white bone and grotesque lines of red tendons, and those monsters are laughing and cackling at his puny attempts at freedom as they lean down at him again –

And then it is not his phantoms that have grasped him, he realises as reality hits him again, his imaginings fading back into the nothing that they have always been. It is only a duvet, pulled down with him in his fall from what appears to be a bed to the floor, that he has been fighting. The duvet which had covered his eyes, the duvet which lay atop and over him which made him think he was being attacked.

He's only been getting lost in memory, mixing past reality into the bizarre fantasy of horrors he's created out of his fear. He pushes the duvet off him and away as though scalded, breathing violently, muttering aloud in an effort to dampen the fire of his panic.

"It's ok – it's alright. Ain't nothing to be getting all jittery about, just your imagination jumpin' the gun... so just calm down, calm... calm. Like Facey says yeah? Breathe. In, out, in, out, in, out..."

He continues his mantra until he is fully under control, grounding himself in the actuality he can truly feel, the cold ground that is chilled against his feet, the texture of his hair under his hands when he runs his fingers through it. And then once he is calm as it is possible for him to be, he tries to order his jumbled tumultuous thoughts.

It is much easier considered than actually accomplished. Murdock's thoughts have never been exactly streamlined and it's always been the case that unless it's flying, something so natural he barely needs to think about it, if he doesn't deliberately focus his thoughts on what he is doing, his mind wanders away without him after a while to something new and attracting his attention and ultimately more interesting.

His thoughts now are as though someone has tried – hard and diligently – to give the insides of his head some semblance of orderliness, packing everything into easily accessed files where things just go together. And then someone or something or even one of those super-cell tornado's that he saw in a documentary about storm chasers – or was it a film? – has came in uninvited and knocked over all those strands and files of carefully sorted thought, mixing them up and maybe even breaking the more fragile imaginings. So now he subconsciously picks up junk at random, scrabbling through the mess left behind, hopeful that at some point he'll manage to find the strand he was aiming for.

_OK, ok, so that was just a duvet, nothing bad, nothing dangerous, and for the moment I'm safe and dandy – where am I anyway? Walls are white too, kinda boring. Why are the walls this colour? I'm not meant to be inside, am I? I'm supposed to be outside, I'm free, running away and not looking back. Inside = bad. Inside = jail. VA. Being separated, being alone – but I was out, the Colonel rescued me, got me out. 3D movie and a tank, never did find out how it ended though. But now I'm out, and we're running as fast as I've ever ran, from Lynch and the Feds thanks to Morrison – run run as fast as you can, you can't catch me, I'm the mad mad man – Still bothered about those walls. White was always Hannibal's favourite colour. Said it always reminded him of calm, although he likes green as well – HANNIBAL! Hannibal. Hannibal. John Smith, Colonel, Ranger, man with a plan, where is he? Where are they? I'm alone, they aren't here are they, and maybe this time they're gonna leave me here – I'm not supposed to be here. If Lynch has got them... If he's got them and hurt them I'll find him, them first but then I'll stay to deal with him and then I'll show him what happens when he messes with my friends – Bet he's here now. Watching me, every move I make with his black eyes and his fat fingers holding the puppet strings. - He's behind this, he has to be – I'll find him, I'll make him stop looking for us, make them leave us alone, make him stop looking, make him stop staring at me like he does- I will, I will – _

A shock of self inflicted pain and he re-emerges from being lost in the rapids of his thoughts to catch himself pinching the skin pink near his wrist with a thumb and forefinger to bring himself back round. He needs to focus. Hannibal. Hannibal was the train of thought that was important. Hannibal and Bosco and Face. Where are they, and where is he? This is important, the big flashing-light-in-neon-colours kind of important.

Time to play detective.

He slowly picks himself up of the floor, throwing a cursory glare at the duvet – just in case. The room he's in is medium size, shaped like a square, with white walls the colour of which continues to the ceiling. He notices he's wearing pyjamas, which explains why he was in bed at any rate, the usual plain blue ones that get handed out in hospitals. He'll figure that one out later, and with slow steps (in case they can hear him, in case they're waiting behind the door for him with gloved hands and needles and cold lifeless eyes that bore into him...) makes his way over to the door on the other side of the room. At least it'll be a start in finding out where he is.

Turns out he didn't need to move at all. The answers are coming to him.

The handle of the door chirps out as it is forced downward by an invisible hand. Murdock jumps in shock and quickly skitters back to a place of retreat, getting back up onto the bed, his back flush against the wall, his eyes watching the door (those bastards, those bastards found him and now they're gonna kill him and hurt him and make him tell...)

Yet when the door is pushed open on its hinges, it is only a man who walks in, not the vicious enemy Murdock imagined; short, pushing the wrong side of forty and not looking the best for it, hair that used to be ginger from what he can still see in areas of hair clinging onto the colour, now dulling and greying where it haloes around his head, leaving an expanse of baldness that has tried to be covered by a comb-over of pathetic hair. Small glasses that really don't seem of much use to his eyes perch at the furtherest end of his nose, and those eyes of a watery green colour take in Murdock, scrutinise every facet of him before flicking to a clipboard in his hand. He is dressed in a long white coat over a blue shirt and smart tie, making Murdock think he might be a doctor, and from the decoration of big and small grey elephants on his tie, a show of over-cheery humour to amuse his patients, he's either a paediatrician or a psychiatrist.

Unfortunately, it's more likely to be the latter.

Then the nameless man gives a small quirk of his mouth, an attempt to placate the distressed man who has pushed his body as far back against the wall as he can to get away from the door, whose eyes are casing about the room for either an exit or for a weapon to defend himself with should the new arrival turn out to be in league with Lynch, should try and attack him.

He looks nice enough. But Murdock knows you can never be certain when it comes to some people.

"Mr Murdock!" The doctor greets him like an old friend, crows feet around his eyes deepening as he smiles, but Murdock's never met this guy before in his life. He's pretty good with faces, he would have remembered. He's scared now and he's trying not to show it – because damn it, he's a ranger, he doesn't get scared – yet there is the first prickle of pre-panic sweat on his forehead, his Adams apple bobbing in his throat as he swallows what little saliva he has left in his mouth."So nice to see you finally awake!"

Murdock shakes his head like he's trying to knock his fears away. He wants Facey. Facey'd know what to do, would have the answers.

Facey isn't here.

"Where am I?" The question is pulled to the forefront of his mind, offering itself in ten languages first – _O__ù__ suis-je? Wo bin ich? Ambapo mimi?_ – that he ignores in favour of his mother tongue. He works hard to keep the tremor out of his voice as he speaks. For the most part, he succeeds.

"The VA hospital" The doctor betrays nothing else other than an unwavering smile.

"Germany?" Damn, he's back in Mannheim again. He must have been caught, screwed up somewhere enough to get captured by the Feds and placed back here again. What about the others? Are they safe? Incarcerated again in separate prisons? Murdock stores the bundles of questions away in an alcove of his mind to retrieve again and ask the doctor later. One step at a time.

A microscopic frown crinkles that smooth pastiche of a smile, as the doctor's brow furrows, as though Murdock's said something nonsensical "You were moved from Germany over a year ago. When you had your relapse... Don't you remember?"

_Relapse?_

"Look, doc," Murdock says, and yep, there's the tremor he's tried so hard to keep control of, putting a quiver in his words " I don't know who you are or how I got here, or even where here is. Can you just..." _Breathe, come on, stay calm. _Facey's voice is in his head with him, and it helps him reign in his emotions"Can you just tell me where my friends are?"

The frown deepens, cracks the mask just faintly "Mr Murdock," the doctor states in a voice that is foreboding regardless of its unimposing tone. He pauses, then moves over from the door, closing it with a quiet click before seating himself on the white chair that stands next to the radiator on the side of the room opposite the bed, leaning back while one leg is raised up to rest over the knee of the other, seeming for all the world completely at home here. Like nothing is wrong.

"My name is Dr Richter" he offers as an initial introduction after a moment of terse thought "Your psychiatrist here. We altered the medication to try and give you a last push, to get you out of your psychosis you understand. Such a comeback to reality might be a bit jarring, so that will probably the reason that there will be some short term memory loss. It will most likely fade in time. You need not worry, you're perfectly safe here."

"Psychosis?" Murdock asks faintly, moving his body down so that he's perched on the side of the bed. The gaze of Dr Richter is boring into him, and he fiddles with his fingers nervously, feeling as though a bug under a microscope. He doesn't feel safe at all.

Richter sighs, pulling off his glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose before replacing them "You've been experiencing near total immersion – auditory, visual, kinaesthetic – into delusions of your own devising... hallucinations, for a long while now. We thought we had it down in Mannheim but there was a chemical imbalance as a side effect of the anti-psychotics we had you on and you just withdrew deeper" The doctor's expression is funny as he looks at him, like a satisfied parent proudly passing on worldly advice to a questioning child, but at the same time...it's subversive, like he's holding something back, some nugget of knowledge Murdock isn't allowed to see. Murdock doesn't trust him.

"I've been livin' my life for a good while, doc." He raises an eyebrow, feigning an uncaring unaffected attitude he doesn't feel. "I think I'da known if I'd gone walkabout from reality" His voice lowers, and an edge of something threatening enters in uninvited "Now, where are my friends?"

"Who?"

So, ignorant is how he wants to play it. He'd play along, usually he likes games, but Murdock's angry and scared and just a little bit freaked out by the way the doctor is looking at him with all his emotions controlled like this has already been scripted, like he knows how he's going to play every quirk of his mouth or raise of eyebrows. Murdock doesn't have the patience for games.

"My team," he snaps, glaring hard at the man, reading his face, trying to catch him out "Hannibal. Face. BA. What have you done with them?"

Richter gives a funny little shrug "I haven't done anything with them," The clipboard appears to come into play as he looks down to read the neat letters written there, his lies put down onto paper in sloping handwritten fiction in order to appear more plausible.

"Ah yes" he hums at the back of his throat, as though confirming something to himself "This is, er... John 'Hannibal' Smith, Templeton Peck – known as Faceman, am I right? – and er, BA... Bosco Baracus, correct?"

Murdock's hands clench into tight fists, the skin over his knuckles taught and whitening. The way he's saying their names, like they're dead or gone...

Don't think that, he berates himself fiercely, don't even dare.

"Murdock," Richter stares at him seriously, a sad gaze on his face "They aren't real"

Murdock almost scoffs, making a curious snorting noise that punctuates the quiet room. The idea is so ridiculous that even the stony expression on the man's face is farcical to him, part of the act, the big joke this is all going to turn out to be.

"That would be one hell of a twist, doc," a smile graces his face "'cept, you see... I've already seen the Crying Game... and the Sixth Sense – you know the one with Bruce Willis turning out to be dead at the end? So if you wanna shock me, you really gotta have to do better than that"

"I'm deadly serious Murdock"

That noise he makes then has too much of an inflection and length to be anything other than a laugh, but it's too forced and brittle to be as a result of humour. It sounds like its bordering on hysteria.

"So am I" he replies, and his smiles fades away to be replaced by a stoic look of contemptuous disbelief. He glares at the doctor, and he imagines the gaze burning into him with laser intensity, eating up a hole sized like a cigarette scorch in his pristine white uniform, the man blending into the clean background of the wall, seeming too perfect with his exactly positioned hair and his carefully cut nails. It looks false, scripted.

"James, look..."

"It's Murdock." he counters brusquely "Captain HM Murdock, formerly employed by the army. My friends call me HM, and on occasion, very rarely, it can be James." his eyes narrow "But you sir, are certainly no friend of mine"

Dr Richter sighs again, puts a hand to his head and rubs his temple with his fingers for a moment, like he has a headache oncoming. If Murdock actually cared, he'd probably tell him to take some ibuprofen or something.

But he's a liar, out to make Murdock trip up and lose his way. And the pilot doesn't know what his motive is, but he's damn well going to find out.

"Mr Murdock," Richter's obviously learned from his mistake, reverting back to something more polite, sounding more like the title reserved for patient-doctor conversations. Murdock's always hated it when people call him Mr Murdock. Only doctors and nurses have ever called him that, and its always in the same patronizing tone, like he's always wrong, that they know best because he's the mad man with the problems, so obviously has the mental IQ of a five year old. That's what he likes about his team; they never talked down to him. Hannibal called him Captain, and was the first person in a long time to say it like it wasn't a joke, like he was a grown adult with his own independent mind. "I know this is hard to accept, but none of anything you believe you've experienced with your so-called 'A-Team' is real."

He leans forward in his chair "You were a pilot in the first Gulf War, there isn't any doubt about that. You've got a glowing military record to prove it. But your plane was shot down in Afghanistan when you were posted there... killing your co-pilot and allowing for you to be captured by enemy forces. After they got you back after months of being imprisoned by the Taliban, you had withdrawn further into yourself. You'd always had a history of odd behaviour. I think one of your commanding officers put on your record that you were … eccentric?" Richter smiles like it's a joke, but Murdock isn't laughing "But your mental state worsened after that, and you began fabricating realities to suit your preferred surroundings. The army psychiatrist said it was a defence mechanism, to deal with what happened after the crash." Richter studies Murdock seriously "Do you remember the crash?"

Murdock does but gives no answer. The Gulf War and Afghanistan has been a long time past, and the crash was nine years ago. He's always managed to restrict the memories he's rather forget into nightmares that wake him frequently. He'd rather not recall those memories, and if he could forget he would.

"What happened then," he growls out as a reply, angry to be reminded of his past. It is none of this man's business and he doesn't want to talk about it, not to Richter or to anyone. "is no evidence to prove I've just been imagining my whole life afterwards. What rabbit hole you think I fell down, doc?"

"Delusions were the form your mental illness took after the crash and you're aware of this." Richter responds "We placed you in the VA in Mexico, but you just kept sinking further and further into hallucinations. It's classic delusion material, your fabrications; placing yourself in the position of the good guy. The hero. Even when you were framed – "

"Now how would you know about that?"

"We kept notes on what you experienced. Documenting the story as it unfolded" he explains, jabbing a bony finger at his notes "Anyway, even being accused of something you didn't do is standard textbook. You – the man trying to do good in his life, fighting for his country – framed and imprisoned by the 'bad guys' and the bureaucracy"

"I ain't buying this one, doc" Murdock grins with a forced smile. This is bullshit. He knows he hasn't been imagining the last eight years with his team, knows he can't have been – every moment has been so real, so believable in a way that hallucinations wouldn't have been able to be, but there's just something about the way Richter is looking at him that makes him feel so uncertain. Tempts him to consider that he might be wrong.

"Well, lets go through the profiles of your 'friends' then" Richter isn't giving up, and settles back comfortably as though he's going to be here for a while. Murdock doesn't like the way he creates air quotations around the word 'friends'. It's condescending and makes him bristle in irritation. "You want to belong, always have done. You've never been able to easily relate to people, so you created a team inside your own head, imagined them from nowhere. We've got the mentor/father figure, the close friend, who understands you despite your problems, and a brother-like antagonist who questions your mental stability but in the end values you as a friend. They all represent something that you've felt like you never had. Gaining the protection and trust you subconsciously crave from Hannibal, a leader to take command . You don't need to make the decisions, Hannibal does it for you. Your own responsibility is diminished, you don't need to question the things that don't make sense in your delusions because Hannibal always has a plan."

"This is just ridiculous – " Murdock starts, but Richter interrupts.

"Then we come to Peck. The man who understands you, a close friend, a womaniser – who reflects a part of your personality which possesses a comfort with the opposite sex you've never achieved . You've never had a long-term girlfriend have you Murdock? Whereas Face has all the personality features you feel you lack. Good looking, popular, good with women."

"If you like him so much, why don't you go sleep with him?" Murdock bites. Who the hell does this guy think he is? Richter stops, then carries on regardless, soldiering on with his psychiatric rubbish.

"Then you have challenge to your reality, which only serves to back up your own convictions in BA. He calls you names, teases you. That's the emergence of your own self-deprecating attitude to your illness. And Baracus is incidentally an image of strength; powerful, capable of defeating any enemy in his way, a quality you haven't ever really had. This not all looking a bit too geometrically simple for real life?You've invented a family for yourself Murdock, their traits all formed out of the things you want to be. In control, self-assured, strong. They exist in place of the deplorable family you had in reality"

Murdock snarls. " You leave that out of this" Yet Richter is gazing beseechingly at him, desperate for him to understand, for him to believe his crackpot story.

"It's all fake Murdock, with bits and pieces from true life that you've thrown in for plausibility. There _was_ a Brock Pike and Russell Morrison, but they were orderlies who worked _here. _You saw them on the ward every day till they both got rotated to different areas. We've never, admittedly, been able to find out where you conjured up the likenesses of Hannibal and Baracus from, but Templeton Peck was the name of the co-pilot who died when your plane went down. Even Billy is part of this real world – Billy, the dog only you can see? He comes into the VA from time to time as part of your animal assisted therapy. Can't you see that it all hasn't been real?"

"Stop..." Murdock wants to close his eyes, shut off the world with his hands clamped over his ears so he can't hear the tempting falsities spewing forth from this man's mouth. Lies so well created he can barely see the stitch lines. They're clever lies. They sound plausible – well, parts of them. Richter's taken things that they know about his team and turned them into some sort of psychiatric analysis of Murdock. So that they're reduced to characteristics, not real people with flaws. Hannibal's not always in control, doesn't always believe in himself. BA has fears just like everyone else, has been defeated and beaten down before. And Face wasn't confident in his own abilities after Sosa left him, didn't always manage to pick up every women who gave him a second look.

Murdock breathes out, telling himself this, helping convince himself that it is Richter who is wrong, no matter how believable he's trying to be. Then, flicking his gaze around, he catches sight of a face that looks in through the glass segment of the window, peering in before retreating again. A flash of a cold and aloof face, short dark hair, sharp suit, the face of his fears. A face he knows well.

Lynch.

He's on his feet then, off the bed, finger pointing accusingly at Richter.

"I saw him!" he crows triumphantly "Out there – Lynch. I knew it, you're one of them, trying to get me to talk, trying to get me to tell you where they are, or whatever information you're trying to get. Well, I tell you now, doc, with all your fancy diplomas and shrink skills and you analysing my brain like you think you're Freud, I ain't telling you a goddamn thing..."

"Calm down Murdock, or I'll be forced to restrain you" Richter has risen to stand also, a tendril of worry present in his face. He's lost, his plan's been messed with...

"If this is all not real then how come I'm seeing Lynch outside the window? Or is he an orderly too, huh?" Murdocks eyes glint, a spark of fire relit after Richter's tales tried to dampen the flames "You're a liar, I _know _that you're lying, so just get out of here and leave me alone"

"Mr Murdock" Richter starts, hands up to calm him but Murdock's angry, has nothing to lose. They've got him here, Lynch and Richter, but he doesn't have to play by their rules.

"Get out!" he shouts, and his tone is getting louder as he speaks. "Get out!"

Richter finally sees the inevitability, will slink away to tend his wounds before the next battle. Murdock doesn't know whether he saw Lynch at the window or not, has made no mention of his existence, but he supposes that he's just trying to hold on to what plausibility he has for when he's trying to pull the wool over Murdock's eyes again.

"Very well," he says, eyes hooded, expression unreadable "but you're going to have to accept the truth sooner or later. I'll be back later when you've calmed down"

And then he leaves the room, locking the door behind him with a click that echoes loud in the near empty space, with its white walls and no window. Leaving Murdock alone and exhausted. His head hurts, his throat sore and body suddenly very tired. All his bravado falls away, and he's not so strong now. He's just a scared man imprisoned, with people questioning everything he's ever held in regard. It's only his word against Richter's, and his word has never stood for much to anyone. Hannibal would believe him, would look at him with those knowing eyes as he drew in from a smoky cigar. Hannibal's not here.

Pulling up the duvet with him, Murdock gets back into the bed, drawing the material all around him; covering him, protecting him. With all that's going on, he wont be sleeping. He doesn't even know what time it is. There are no bars to his door, yet there are locks, and he knows he is imprisoned. Trapped. With people who belittle every word he speaks, who will put needles in his veins, give him drugs to swallow with a glass of water.

He thought he'd been rescued from his own personal hell caged away from the sky when the guys got him out of Mannheim. It makes him shake now he's left alone to know he's back.

It's now that he's starting to miss his friends more than ever.

* * *

_~~ This one-shot grew to ridiculous lengths, so this is going to have to be posted in two instalments. The second part is written and finished, but it just needs some polishing and checking, so should be up soon. _

_Hope you're liking so far anyway. =] _


	2. Chapter 2

_AN/ So sorry this has taken so long to get up – life kind of borrowed me full time for a while, but I'm back now, fingers crossed =] Here is the concluding part. I'm not personally 100% happy, so if you have any constructive criticism please don't hesitate to get in touch._

* * *

_"Out of all the hours thinking, somehow  
__I've lost my mind"  
**Unwell, Matchbox 20**_

* * *

Murdock doesn't believe Richter. Wont believe him. Doesn't take in the lies, shakes his head at them when they are spoken or simply blocks them out, because he knows that's what they are. Lies. Falsities.

He can't bring himself to even contemplate what it means if he's right.

He saw Lynch outside his room. Recognised every detail. Agent Vance Burress, formerly of the CIA Special Division. Murdock thought he'd been locked up since it was revealed he was behind their set up. He must have been sprung from incarceration, either by himself or by a sympathetic operative. Which meant most likely that this was unofficial, not masterminded by the CIA or FBI. Lynch could be working to get back into the agency's good-books, or he could have decided that he could get more rewards delivering the three remaining members of the A-Team to the criminal group whose bounty for the men was highest.

Murdock had no rights if this was unofficial. They could keep him in here as long as they liked, could do what they wanted with him. This whole building had been made to look exactly like a VA, even down to the nurses and pills, so how far could they go trying to make Murdock talk?

Somehow they had captured him on his own. His mind's been fuzzy since he came back here, and his thoughts are difficult to keep hold of, rising up away from his grasping fingers like ribbons on the wind; they're making him take pills again, little violet coloured ones with numbers printed onto them to show the batch they've come from, the longer two-tone ones, half yellow and half orange. He can hold them all in one hand, counting the different colours of pink and white and yellow before he has to down them like Smarties under the watchful eye of the ward nurse. They're meant to be combating all the problems they've misdiagnosed him with again, but Murdock doesn't think they're working. The first time they get him back on the Risperidone he's physically sick, vomiting up what little he'd eaten, and sometimes the nausea caused by the dopamine and serotonin is so bad his head spins, his mind working on its own crazy out-of-control axis, and he has to sit down before he falls.

But because of the memory problems he's been having, he can't remember how he got here. He thinks he knows what was happened before he awoke to his white walled prison again – he was on a mission, staking out the home of their next mark - a rich millionaire involved in prostitution rings. It was a large mansion with fancy column's and a swimming pool outside for entertaining some of his many female friends, but when Murdock was checking it out, the pool was empty and rippled with dark as he lay on his stomach under cover of nightfall, looking out off a raised area of land with binoculars focused on what was happening inside the house through open and uncovered French windows.

Murdock never heard anyone creep up behind him. No rustle of clothing chafing against skin, no snapping of twigs underfoot. But he thinks he remembers a shot to the back of his neck, a sudden pain which made his hand fly to his neck immediately. Barely having time to feel out the shape of a dart protruding from his skin, the needle jutting out awkwardly and already having spilled its somniferous cargo into Murdock's veins, before everything swayed into a blur before finally going black.

Murdock believes that's what happened, but in truth he can barely remember. He might have constructed it in his own head for all he knows, a safety defence mechanism to help make sense of the senseless.

The web of lies Richter is spinning is very effective, and it is like watching a man in some circus show, swinging arm-length poi ropes with the material aflame, confusing Murdock with the dragging trials of red fiery light like the colour's been shot in long exposure, without being burned at the same time. He seems to be able to explain away every part of Murdocks delusions, take in the information that Murdock pulls out to discredit his lies, and quicker than blinking is able to compensate. Destroying walls of Murdock's defence with cold analysis, spoken so calmly and rationally it stabs and shocks at the pilot's convictions.

They've even got Billy, his handler bringing him in on a Tuesday for his Animal Assisted Therapy session's with some of the depressive patients, down to a tee. He appears quite like Murdock's Billy, almost identical; a brown and black German shepherd, big eyes, a way of cocking his head and whimpering when he wants something, with one ear that naturally is folded at the tip and crooked. But he knows that that can't be Billy. Billy exists only inside his own head, he's come to realise that. Hannibal never saw him, Face never saw him. Only ever Murdock. And however close they've tried to replicate his imaginings into a solid flesh-and-blood animal, they fall down and cave in at the inevitability that you can't recreate what doesn't already exist.

This dog doesn't bound towards Murdock with the same excitable panting, doesn't have quite the same shade of brown eyes, like a bar of Hershey chocolate. He's not the same dog. But Murdock cuddles him close regardless, scrunching his fingers through the fine downy coat, twisting curls into the strands, and burying his head in the dogs fur. The sight of a grown man on his knees clutching a dog to him like it's the only thing to anchor him is probably demeaning him in some way, but he's never had much dignity anyway. The animal whimpers, sensing some part of the well of sadness Murdock is storing up and sharing for a moment in the misery. Murdock feels like crying.

Not-Billy is the only friendly presence he's seen in his place. It reminds him of home – of trying to convince Face to play catch with an invisible dog, his joy when the man acquiesced, of blaming Billy when BA's milk got spilt, and the big guy not believing a word of his 'fool story'.

Those thoughts hurt as much as they comfort him.

* * *

A week into his sentence, and he is assured that this is a hoax. It's his first meeting with Richter, the man sitting back on his chair armed as usual with a clipboard and a pen in his pocket, Murdock approaching it with a sullen folded-arms attitude usually seen in teenaged boys, and the only topic the doctor tries to discuss is that of his team. That of course is to be expected, they are part of his so-called 'delusion' after all, but it's the questions he broaches around them. Richter asks about them, what they've been doing – the jobs they've been on, the places they've been – , even where they are at the moment. All in a purely conversational manner, and when Murdock brusquely enquires as to why, he says in an offhand manner like it doesn't really matter that it's because he wants a clear picture of Murdock's imaginings, so he can begin to de-construct them. He moves onto another topic after that, probably so Murdock doesn't cotton on to his subtle information gathering, but the pilot has already seen through the flimsy thin excuse that has been made.

Richter wants to know where they are so those who are ultimately behind this, shadowy figures with no names working with Lynch can get them, using Murdock to lead them to his team.

They're still out there, he realises with a fierce joy burning bright, only the barest of flickers in the otherwise strong flame; they're still free and still alive out there somewhere, and damn it, but that's the best news Murdock could have hoped for. A heaviness is lifted from him, his own doubts and fears melting away to puddle into a shrinking nothingness on the ground. Murdock has to keep fighting this, has to keep his head above the shit they're spoon-feeding him, the drugs that are administered in the momentary prick of needles and the pills that they secrete in his food, he's got to hold on because some day soon they'll come back and get him out of here.

Hannibal promised he'd never leave him. Never. And Murdock holds onto that with the tenacity of a drowning man.

* * *

"Murdock?" Richter questions "Murdock, are you listening? I was talking about getting you out of here, you know, just for a day trip. We're not far from the zoo you know, the one in Julia Davis Park? I hear they've got lots of animals there. Think you might like that? Getting yourself out for a day, give you some time in the sun, hm?"

Richter's faux-enthusiasm does nothing to excite Murdock out of his sullenness, and he shrugs slightly, fidgeting him his chair, kicking his feet in front of him just like he's been doing for the past fifteen minutes he's been in this session. His mind is trying to distract him with other things so as not to listen to the doctor; nice things like making pancakes, and Spiderman and watching movies. So far it's nearly working, and he's succeeding in mostly blocking the man out.

"Come on, Murdock?" Richter sighs wearily with a deep long-suffering breath "Work with me,hm? I'm trying to help you" At Murdock's silence he sighs again and taps his fingers on his clipboard thoughtfully as though he's wondering how to continue. Murdock just stares down at the floor, following the cracks between the lino slabs with his eyes, imagining that it is some form of primitive road system used by any bugs crawling across the floor.

"We'll talk about a trip later" Richter says finally, stopping his tapping to continue talking, fixing his gaze back on Murdock with a renewed determination "First though, lets try something else to get you to open up."

He digs a hand into his pocket, his fingers enclosing around something, and as Murdock sees what he brings out, his heart stops dead in his chest as he sights the cold flash of metal, and he doesn't think, doesn't even formulate much thought, as he reacts with honed responses from his army days. It's instinct, flight or fight and he snatches the knife from Richter's grasp, throwing it down to the ground where he hears it clatter and clink against the floor. The doctor looks shocked, frightened almost but reigning the emotions in, and Murdock knows what he must seem like – the pilot's hair unkempt, eyes wide in panic and fear – before his hands are pushing Richter away, reducing the chance of the man charging at him again if he has sort of backup weapon on hand to attack Murdock with. He plants both hands on the doctor's shoulders and forcing him back, the chair legs lifted up from four to two before balance is lost, and the chair with its occupant crashes against the floor.

Then suddenly orderlies are making their way speedily into the room, alert to any danger, any insubordination by patients. Richter appears unharmed as he sits up dazedly, and Murdock can still see the knife lying now harmlessly on the floor where it was cast.

"He had a knife" he tells the orderlies honestly, pointing at Richter with an outstretched finger "He had a knife"

But none of them believe him, as they grab hold of his arms. One looks right down at the ground, right at where the blade is lying serenely, silver mirror reflecting the room around him, and doesn't say anything at all. Doesn't even comment on it, just makes a 'pff' sound like this is just another minor deal in his long shift that he would much rather spend just holing himself up in an office watching monitors and playing minesweeper at the same time.

"It's alright," Richter is explaining to one of the orderlies, and Murdock can hear him fabricating quick lies than none the less sound convincing enough "It was just a reaction to a perceived threat that's all, I should have been more careful pulling out my pen. I think we'll have to have this session conclude at a later date"

And Murdock is being taken away from Richter and his session room with the walls plastered with motivational posters and maps of the cranium, back to his lonely white room, still protesting his own innocence – He saw the knife! He saw it with his own eyes! – as two of the orderlies hold his arm in a tight clamp as they steer him in the right direction, almost frogmarching him back. Murdock keeps repeating the truth aloud, and he swears he hears one of the orderlies mumble 'oh for God's sake'; but of course, they're working with Lynch aren't they? Even if they did see the knife they wouldn't admit to it.

The door closes on him and is locked with a swiftly turned key as soon as he is deposited back in his cell, and Murdock pounds on it feebly, shouting to the silence that is listening.

"You've got to listen to me. He had a knife, he tried to kill me!"

Murdock knows he had a knife. Saw the glint of silver, polished handle, the intent to hurt Murdock in Richter's eyes in a flash of emotion before it was gone again, fading into a falsified innocence.

He saw it. Didn't he?

* * *

Two months in and he begins withdrawing into himself. Protecting himself the only way he knows how to by pushing certain realities away, holding them at arms length so he doesn't have to deal with them. He doesn't engage with any of the other inmates here, doesn't talk to them when he sees them, doesn't follow up on invites for games or even his beloved movies. He just stays in his room, and there is a space under the bed he can hide by lying flat on his back and staring up at metal slats underneath his mattress.

Unblinking he focuses on how the shadows blend into each other, and if he concentrates hard enough he starts to see shapes, motions and sounds that entice him along with them. He can spend whole hours daydreaming, and the shadows change colour till it is not the dark underbelly of his bed, but the sky outside, eternally cloudless and blue, and the sounds of 'copters whirr around him. He gets into them sometimes, in his head, and just sits at the controls, knowing this all isn't real but taking advantage of it anyway; feet placed on the pedals, hands fingering the throttle awkwardly like he's a frightened newbie again before he clicks the starter button, firing up the engines, pulling upwards the collective lever to be able to hear the rotor blades whine and begin to spin. Sometimes he hears Hannibal speaking next to him as he eases the old girl off the ground, and Face is behind his seat making sure BA is still out of it, but Murdock never turns round at that point, because he tells himself that as soon as he does that, the whole dream is broken and dies. He directs all his attention to his 'copter, the feeling in the pit of his stomach he always gets when he flies, the thrill of seeing the open blue sky.

And then he'll forget, turn his head to laugh at one of Face's jokes, and there wont be anything there at all, and he'll be lying on his back under his bed with the skin around his eyes wet and something that he tells himself isn't tears blurring his vision.

Social contact dwindles down from the limited number that it was to just his nurses – there are only two and he doesn't even know them by their real names, only the 'Nurse Simmons' and 'Nurse Nelson' that are printed in neat capital letters to oblong badges that are then clipped to their uniforms. Whatever their full names are, they're nice enough, probably not even aware that they're working for the enemy and lately they seem to be trying to cheer him up, as one day he finds they've put up posters of planes on the walls in his room for him when he gets back. On the posters there is a Tornado fighter jets shooting streamlined against a background of clear sky pervaded by only the barest wisps of cloud, one larger poster over his cot of a Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor that reminds him of a model he flew on one of his missions for the CIA. Flew like a dream, he recalls nostalgically, controls fine-tuned and immediately responsive to his actions in the cockpit, the feeling of the earth falling away from him wonderful and glorious when he got bored after dropping off the cargo and making his way back to base, pulling it into a 360° spin and grinning like a maniac every second of it.

He touches the pictures with trembling fingertips, feeling so much more than paper under his hand, seeing so much more than just printed images. The pictures are a little piece of his past, and despite everything he manages a small smile for them when they next check up on them. He's not sure whether they caught the throaty 'thank you' he whispered, but he hopes they did.

He is made to visit Richter also, and his responses to his questions whenever he is expected to reply are reduced to distanced monosyllabic mutterings, eye contact impossible when he's staring at his shoes. The doctor often expresses a degree of disappointment that Murdock isn't progressing as hoped. Isn't casting off the shackles of his illusionary life. Accepting it as falsity. Murdock doesn't care.

The doctor says in a voice dripping with concern that Murdock's becoming depressed. Introverted, detaching himself from his surroundings to bury himself in thoughts, what Murdock calls memory and the shrink calls imaginings. He's suggesting that Murdock sign himself up for some ECT to help with the dark thoughts he's been having. He doesn't want to, but Richter keeps pushing it and pushing it. Saying it'll be good for him, saying it'll help. Murdock wonders whether this is another layer of the game he's trapped in, or whether it's revenge for the foiling of the man's attempt to attack him. It hadn't been mentioned again after an initial acknowledgement from Richter, assuring Murdock he knew he hadn't meant it, apologising for what had happened. But obviously just trying to convince the pilot that his surrounds aren't real hadn't worked, so now they were trying to introduce an extra level of stimuli, incentive for Murdock to talk. All under the guise of trying to help him.

Bolts of electricity through his brain are definitely going to help things.

Murdock's scared it'll hurt. Doesn't know if they'll give him an anaesthetic to make it look to the attending nurses like they're doing it humanely the first time, or if they'll just forgo it to get the answers they want. But he's mostly scared he'll give in, succumb to the pain and tell them what they want to know, accept this reality as the real one.

He's scared they'll win.

Lynch, he sometimes sees outside his room through the glass window. The man stares at him, smirking sometimes to sight the misery in Murdock's eyes and no matter how often Richter tells him Lynch is only a figment of his imagination, a construct upon which he has heaped all his feelings of persecution upon, Murdock knows the truth. Lynch is laughing at him silently, and Murdock's knuckles are bruised and painful from when he punched the glass in his locked door, aiming for the smarmy bastard's face but not even succeeding in breaking the glass. Anger boiling up and steaming over as he remembers when he tried to screw him and his team over, took their ranks away, locked them up then got them in a position where the CIA tried to do it again.

He hates them all, not just Lynch but the whole damn lot of them, hates them for taking him and locking him away in a little white room where he cannot see the sky, for taking away his friends from him, for trying to force him to doubt even his own mind; the only thing that is truly his in this place. He knows that sooner or later his team will come and get him, that they wont leave him to rot and slowly lose his mind. But waiting is just so hard.

* * *

It's hard to recall things these days, his whole world pervaded by the here-and-now, so much so that it is difficult to even recall what used to be the clearest memories – his time with the Team in those eight perfect years – but he clings onto the memories that endure regardless of everything. The smell of Hannibal's cigars, the time they tried to convince him to quit and he managed all of one day with patches of nicotine dotting up his arm before they caught him hiding behind the mess tent taking a relieved drag from a smuggled cigar. Little things like Facey's smile when he was turning on the charm for a mark, when he made out with a women while they were visiting a bar, and the three of them didn't tell him till he took a break due to lack of air that the women's name used to be Gary; things like BA and the way they used to banter, Murdock recalling that one time in Kuwait when the pilot had accidentally started a shoot-out with the hostiles and used the big guy's beloved van to take the bullets for him, and the frantic panicked operation between him and Face to get the thing fixed before Bosco came back from R&R.

And remembering all these makes Murdock wonder how long his patience will hold out.

* * *

Murdock doesn't sleep that night, tossing and turning fitfully well into the earlier hours of the morning so after he finally does drop off into a restless and disturbed sleep he ends up awakening late. The clock on his bedside table proclaims it as twelve twenty three, so he's already missed breakfast, doesn't feel up to any lunch. So he lies on his bed, staring at the ceiling for a long while, taking in every facet of the poster there, not really thinking about anything at all, just vaguely considering thoughts that float in and out of his mind without really connecting to any of them.

He thinks he hears voices that follow along with the footsteps coming his way. Without really meaning to, he finds himself listening into the conversation that appears to be going on between the parties.

"_He's not going to give in is he?" _The first voice speaks evenly, a male timbre to the sound, and with a jolt, Murdock realises that it's Lynch. He'd almost forgotten what the man sounded like, but after the whole show-down at the docks – where they all almost got their asses handed to them if not for several improvisations to the plan, and the Kevlar in Hannibal's chest protection, and when Murdock distinctly remembers getting shot in the head and having a constant headache after that for about a week – he'd know that voice anywhere. Suddenly, he's wide awake, and quietly as he can he tiptoes out of bed and steals over to the door, putting his ear against the cold wood of the door, listening hard to what they're saying.

"_I'm afraid not." _Richter? Sounds like him; the same sort of quiet nasally voice that makes Murdock have to strain to hear him "_I believed we might be making some progress, but he still believes they're out there alive, and he isn't going to tell us where they are. He's sighted you Vance, it's only made him more convinced"_

"_You tried the electro treatment? I would have thought the pain would convince him to spill"_

"_Not yet. We were going to go through with it under the pretence of it being ETC, but..." _There is a pause and for a moment Murdock thinks they might have stopped before the words continue "_Given his past record, the higher ups didn't think it would be effective. Remember the Gulf? The guy managed weeks in a camp being pushed for military secrets, didn't say anything. With his convictions, he's not going to tell us, not if he thinks he's protecting his team"_

"_Not much use keeping him any longer is there then? He knows too much about us. The project's failed, and considering there's been no sound from Hannibal and his lot since we lifted their pet psycho, I say they aren't going to take the bait."_

"_You think we should take him out. This been sanctioned?"_

"_None of this whole thing is official, doctor. I got given powers to find the other three, and I've been using them, but so long as there's no paper trial leading back, we can pretty much do anything"_

"_Not kill him. Too easily tracked back. So how?"_

"_He's a psych patient, Their conditions, I'm told worsen all the time. Sometimes till there's nothing left of them at all"_

"_When then?"_

"_Today?"_

"_That soon?"_

"_Well, why wait? You've been with him doctor. He's burnt out. You said yourself his mental issues have been getting worse due to the separation from his team. Best to just put him out of his misery. Give him a nothingness. It'll be peaceful"_

"_I'll take him away from here. Sigh him up for a bit of limbic leutocotomy."_

"_English please, doctor"_

_Neurosurgical treatment. It's a pretty standard procedure for schizos, those with obsessional __neurosis and depressives, etc. It might fix him if there really was anything desperately wrong, but I'll just do a bit of altering to the paperwork, pull a few strings in the departments at Massachusetts General to requestion a surgery room, no-one will question it. Then I'll make it look like an accident. Procedure gone wrong due to complications..." _A short cough "_He'll ask questions, you know. He's not stupid"_

"_His kind always is in one form or another. Just feed him some bullshit. And if he figures out some thing's up, well hell, no-one's going to believe him are they?"_

There is a knock at the door, polite-sounding, before there is the scratching sound of a key turning in a lock, and Richter walks in. Appearing for all the world like he just hasn't planned Murdock's murder right outside. He's fiddling with his clipboard, slotting a pen underneath the space on the clipboard where the metal clips onto the backboard holding papers in position, but when he looks up at Murdock, his distracted demeanour melts away, and he smiles in a friendly manner, as though whatever he is about to impart has cheered him somewhat.

There is no Lynch. He must be outside. Hiding in the shadows, so Murdock wont sight him and know something is amiss.

"I thought you would be up by now" Richter grins at the pilot, tucking the clipboard under his arm "It's the trip to Boise today remember?"

Murdock glares daggers at him "You mean Massachusetts, don't you? " he growls, shoulders tensed , all his senses shouting that Richter's going to do something, any minute he's going to make a move, and Murdock backs away from the middle of the room, over to the left, leading back to the wall that marks the edges of his room "You're gonna murder me, make it look like an accident."

"Don't be silly Mr Murdock" Richter says, expression frowning, but his voice as calm as ever – he must know Murdock heard him, is trying to pass it off as nothing, but Murdock _knows _what he's going to do – and his tone would be comforting if he didn't know the truth, if he hadn't heard that same voice agreeing to killing his captive "We talked about this your last few sessions. We were going to try out and take you out of here. The zoo, remember? You _agreed _to this"

"I didn't" Murdock squirms back further, the motions towards him Richter is taking making him back up closer and closer against a wall, getting him in a position where if there's a fight Murdock wont be able to win. Maybe he'll be able to take Richter down, but this whole place is filled with _them, _those who are working for Lynch and he can't take on them all and win. "I didn't say anything about you... you shoving things into my brain... about you... you lobotomising me!"

"Murdock, what are you on about? Where've you got this idea from, hm?"

"No" Murdock shakes his head wildly, panicking. Richter is looking at him in _that _way, with _that _expression, trying to sway him "No, don't you _dare _try and convince me I'm crazy, doc. I heard what you were sayin' outside, you an' your pal Lynch"

"Lynch? Lynch doesn't exist, can't you see that?"

"Stop doing that! Stop lying to me!"

Richter moves back slightly, and Murdock feels like now might be his chance to try and escape – the door is unlocked, if he moves fast enough... – but the doctor is pushing a small little pink button which neighbours with the light-switch; twisting it around clockwise and depressing it. It's the alarm button that they've got in every room when one of the patients is getting too distressed for one doctor to handle.

The backup arrives suspiciously quickly – this is part of Richter's plan, Murdock realises with a sinking panic, he must have known Murdock was listening, he doesn't know how he could have but he _must _have known – and the door opens again on ominously silent hinges to welcome two orderlies, dressed all in white, like fearful spectres, omens of death or other such superstitious garble – like black cats and broken mirrors – that Murdock always had a vague affection for, their faces covered in masks as though they're surgeons so that only their eyes peek out, peering at him with such intensity he cannot hold their gaze for long.

_They've come to get him, _he thinks, and he can feel his hands shaking as they hang helplessly by his side. _They're after him, they're going to take him away, going to make him hurt. _

"Let's calm down now, Murdock," Richter is saying "Nothing is going to hurt you"

"You're lying..." He whines as Richter continues looking for all the world like he's telling the truth, like Murdock's the one who is overreacting. But he can't be because he _couldn't _have, he heard what they were saying outside.

"...It's just a little visit out of the VA. Not far, you'll enjoy it, honestly..."

"I am _not _doing this!" Murdock feels like a child having a tantrum, but he can see what is buried beneath the caring exterior. "You're going to kill me! I know you are!"

"Now, come now, Mr Murdock. There is no need to over-react. I know you might be a little worried, you haven't been out of here for a while, but everything is perfectly safe. You'll be protected, no one will harm you"

"Stop it!" Murdock clamps his hands over his ears, blocking out the sound of his own shouting, which is becoming more and more hysterical the more frightened he becomes; Richter with his beseeching traitorous eyes, the surgeons with their ominous unspeaking presence.

Richter gives the orderlies a small nod, and they move over to the man now backed up fully against the wall, half cowering, half tensed in a defensive posture. They attach their hands to his arms, grasp him steady.

"You're just having an attack, James..."

"Don't you dare call me that!" Murdock snarls. He can't use that name, it's not his right... "Don't you dare..."

"You're having a panic attack. You need to calm down"

"Get off me..." Murdock struggles in the grip that is holding him, and his breathes are coming fast and hard like he's been running, fighting their way up through his windpipe, not feeling enough to compensate for the adrenaline spinning, coursing through his bloodstream; increasing his heartbeat tenfold, making him light-headed. He tries to pull his arms free from the sudden hard grasp holding him, bucks and kicks out wildly when that ultimately fails "LET ME GO!"

"Hysteria is getting you no-where Murdock. Just calm down. Breathe."

Facey used to say that to him, murmured it to him when the world was a buzz of sound and motion and Murdock just couldn't cope, made the pilot look at him straight in the eyes and follow the way he was breathing – Facey always looked after him, made sure he was ok – but Face's not here any more and Murdock is so frightened and alone, and he can't defeat them all alone, can't do this any more because he's so tired of pretending that everything is ok, that they aren't breaking him when slowly, ever so slowly they are.

However much effort it is, his last vestiges of energy are forced out of him, giving him the push he needs to fight harder as he watches Richter sigh and bring something forth from his pocket – a syringe filled with the usual medicinal Diazepam tranquilliser, his fingers popping the protective rubber cap off the top. Administered so he'll come quietly.

"You need to snap out of this Murdock." Richter is speaking slowly as he advances "We don't want you regressing back to your delusions. Just remember that this is real, ok? This is real"

"Don't touch me with that thing!" Murdock's not listening, cries out as the man gets closer, and there are tears of helplessness, tears of panic and fear streaming down his face as he bucks uselessly in the grip of the two surgeons which seems to be tightening. He should be able to fight this, should be able to win, but in here, he's not a ranger, isn't a member of the A-Team; in here, he's alone with no-one going to come and rescue him, no one who'll see a real person. In here, he's just a madman locked in a white room "No – please..." The needle is pushed hard into his arm, metal sliding through flesh and muscle, the plunger pushed down. Richter almost looks sorry as the needle is pulled back out, the vial of liquid emptied out, but the damage is done, and the drug that was in there has already started its soporific effect.

"No" Murdock moans, sensing the tiredness rush over him, trying to steel himself against it. He can't let them win, can't let them take him. "Please. Hannibal! Hannibal, please, make them stop"

But Hannibal isn't here, and neither is Facey or BA. He wants to call out of them, but even though he opens his mouth he can't shout the words out. They've won, they finally won and Murdock is just letting them, unable to do anything else. And as darkness comes as cruelly and surely as though death, Murdock glances up into the grey eyes of one of the orderlies holding him with tight fingers pressing white against his flesh, and imagines he sees his Colonel one last time as the world and reality fades away again.

* * *

"Captain?" There is sound surrounding him, blanketing him, his subconscious filtering through the clattering of heavy footsteps, melancholy whispering that he can't quite make out as he surfaces into wakefulness, not moving at first, coming to terms with the rough waves of his thoughts "Captain wake up"

Someone calls his name in a low voice. He experiences the compulsion to reply, but for the moment chooses to wallow in the comforting hold of burgeoning alertness.

"Tha' stuff should be outta tha' fool by now"

"I know Sergeant. He should be coming round any minute now. And if I know our pilot, I'd say he's awake already"

Murdock coughs then whimpers as recent memories surge forth, turning away from the noises and curling up in a foetal position so as to protect himself. Richter must have given his head some going over. Maybe even got too zealous with where he messed up in Murdock's mind. He wonders what is broken, wonders whether he'll miss it.

Maybe he's even dead, and this is some form of weird abstract afterlife where he's forced to endure the voices in his head until the arrival of judgement day.

But it doesn't feel like that, because there is definitely voices with owners nearby, the shuffling of someone moving around, a quiet curse and a clang as someone drops something, and a hand that places itself gently on his shoulder, shaking him slightly as if to wake him can't be just his imagination. It's too heavy, too tangible. Can't be just another one of his 'hallucinations'.

"Murdock?"

It's Face. He is real and there and Murdock opens his eyes wide to see exactly what he hoped. What he's been hoping for for a long while.

A thin face, tired but smiling completely with those big blue eyes of his.

He sits up, turning his body round to gaze properly at the people surrounding the makeshift cot he seems to be occupying "Facey?" They're all there; Hannibal, BA, and Face, all there. They didn't leave him... He leans back for a split second, mistrustful of what he's seeing "Are you really here?" A horrible thought wells up in his head, black and noxious; a doubt he hasn't allowed himself to even consider weeding its way insidiously into his mind, using its thorny tentacles to grab hold of him. What if he _has_ been imagining all this? What if Richter's been right all along, and that he's just relapsed, gone back into himself and his own delusions?

But the look Face is giving him, the gentle smile – which reminds him of all those impromptu barbecues at HQ, the spontaneous games of hide and seek, their basketball games with some of the regular army when they were off-duty – is real enough. He smells the rich heady smoke in the air that comes from the Colonel's usual El Rico Habano cigars, catches the glint of a gold medallion in a circular shape hung around BA's neck. There is the abandoned disguise of white orderly clothing draped over the back of the chair to his right and he realises that that _was _Hannibal he saw for a split second, hidden behind that cover, Hannibal and most likely Face in the other surgeons outfit. They came and rescued him from that place. Like he knew they would, like he'd prayed they would.

This is genuine. The only reality he'll ever want. With his friends, his team. Lynch and Richter and all those involved in trying to trick him couldn't convince him otherwise.

"HM" Tight arms wrap around his neck, hugging him, holding him close "Jesus, I thought I'd never see you again. We only just got to you in time before that Richter was going to take you away. God it was horrible pretending. When they were gonna take you away and we had to stand there and hold you still... We've been monitoring Lynch for weeks, only just traced the right signals back to find out where they were holding you." The arms squeeze tighter, tinged with some form of latent fear "Damn it, Murdock, next time don't get yourself caught, huh?"

"Good to have you back, Captain" Hannibal smiles around his cigar, enhancing the crows feet around his eyes, an unheard laugh evident in the expression on his face, and Murdock even senses BA reach out a meaty hand and tussle his hair in a rare display of rough affection.

"Don't do tha' to us again fool, you hear?"

Murdock grins mirthfully, names of his team repeated aloud and triumphantly on his tongue, as though naming them will make them stay longer, will make them stay forever. They aren't going anywhere, he promises himself, he wont lose them again, they can't be taken away from him.

And he encircles his arms around Face all the tighter.

He's home.

* * *

_~~ A friend of mine looked at this, and informed me that there is actually three ways of reading the ending. So, I'll let you guys decide for yourselves =] Hope you've liked this anyway. _


End file.
